Monsoon in winter: rain, hailstorm disrupt life

Heavy rain and hailstorm lashed the national Capital on Friday, throwing life of gear in many areas.

It was the heaviest January rain in 10 years as the Met department recorded 33.3mm rainfall. The city had 21 mm rainfall in the last 24 hours till Friday morning.

The downpour brought down the mercury level, though the morning temperature remained unusually high due to a thick cloud cover.

The maximum temperature settled at 16.4 degrees Celsius, four degrees below normal. It was a significant drop from Thursday's 20.8 degrees.

The minimum, however, was recorded at 11.3 degrees Celsius, four degrees below normal and up from Thursday's 9.7 degrees.

Waterlogging and traffic jams were reported from several localities.

There were 16 complaints of waterlogging from across the city, which caused massive jams in many areas such as ITO, Vikas Marg and South Extension. Outages, too, were reported from many colonies in east Delhi.

The late night hailstorm also affected flight operations and five flights were diverted to nearby airports. According to the Met department, through the visibility was good, it was the wind speed that affected the flights.

The department has forecast dense fog at the airport on Saturday, which will stay for 2-3 days.

According to the weatherman, the minimum and maximum temperatures will be between 7 and 16 degrees Celsius on Saturday. Shallow fog is expected in the morning, but the day will be clear.

Fliers forced to stay in snag-hit aircraft

Passengers of a Jet Airways flight were forced to stay inside the plane after it developed a snag on Friday. “We boarded the flight at 3:55pm and were told that there is some glitch.

After an hour, they stopped making announcements. If there was a technical fault, they could have shifted us to the terminal," said Suresh Goyal, director general of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, who was onboard a Mumbai-bound flight. A Jet airways spokesperson said to avoid inconvenience, the passengers were not taken to the terminal and a separate plane was arranged.